The meaning of this research can be summed up by the following Saint
Augustine’s quote: “the world is a book and those who do not travel read
only one page”.
François-Jaques Deseine wrote an essay on the book of the world or, better,
he wrote an essay on the chapter dedicated to Italy. His Nouveau Voyage
d’Italie is an abundant narration of his itinerary across Italian regions, into
two volumes, in which the Frenchman lists, sometimes too pedantically, the
beauties of an area which has been the main theme of travel accounts and
diaries since the 16th century. We know only a little about Deseine, but what
we can infer, from the topics he deals with in his work, is his deep catholic
faith in a time when the Enlightenment way of thinking is nearly gaining
ground. But he does not give up and handles some topics as a priest or a
bishop travelling on the roads of the faith, the Francigena, for example. And
in fact he follows the “road to France”, at least as far as the stretch of
Latium is concerned, which is the matter of our interest. As every selfrespecting
good catholic, the Parisian follows, during the description of the
province named Patrimonio di San Pietro, those which are considered the
basic legs of this road area which is called Francigena, as we can verify
through the maps and the routes of the Ministry for the Arts. Viterbo had
definitely to be covered with this digression. Deseine gratifies this town,
describing it in some pages, unlike the most of his contemporary travel
accounts, but even the previous and following ones, which dwell upon the
papal town only in few lines, using sometimes unflattering remarks. There is
a great difficulty to give a straight evaluation of his travel account because it
is not able to live by itself, it is only a long list of places and of historical
and traditional events, totally lacking in personal comments.
It was advisable to widen the research towards other aspects, which were
useful to make the outline of the eighteenth century travel almost perfect.
There are some manuscripts concerning the hospital reception in Viterbo,
between the end of the Seventeenth century and the beginning of the
Eighteenth century. It is an exchange of letters which roused a long
controversy between two Dominican Friaries in Viterbo, that of Santa Maria
in Gradi and that of Santa Maria della Quercia, about the hospitality
management. These manuscripts, once adapted, turn out 47 printed pages.
We found them at the Domenican Records Office of Santa Sabina Church in
Rome and they may be dated after the second half of the Eighteenth century.
They are catalogued as XI 5750 Conventus sub titulo Sanctae Mariae ad
Gradus and precisely the 5750/IV contains the details of the litigation. Here
is, in short, the content of these manuscripts: Santa Maria della Quercia
Friars should have refunded Santa Maria in Gradi Friars for the guest
maintenance, but they refuse. A long controversy opened and both the
structures referred to different Masters of the Dominican Order to obtain to
be right. It shows the drop in attendance of visitors in a very busy town, the
last leg of a journey to Rome, as well as the favourable or disadvantageous
terms of a friary, which was located in or out of a town. It also shows the
various matters related to the means of support of a hospice, where charity
brought profit to account.
At last, here is the reason why we have chosen the title Deseine. A journey
towards the sacred: it is undoubtedly true that Deseine was a catholic, but
he was a catholic soaked with Enlightenment, and then shifting between the
desire of experiencing and that of symbolizing classicism and learning. Italy
is the home of the sacred; with Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela,
Rome is one of the three destinations of the religious journey; it is the place
where Saint Peter and Saint Paul were martyrized. Therefore it is impossible
to go through this area ignoring its miracles, relics and sacred places. It is
difficult to plan a journey going off the Francigena Road which led to Rome
from Northern Europe, through the Alps and the Apennines, running across
Tuscany and Latium. The Francigena Road touched Viterbo, which stayed
on the fringe of the pilgrims uproar because, once they got the Tuscia, their
journey was almost finished, the sacred was almost tangible. A marginal
status which has been a mixed blessing for the town: it has been cut off from
the mass travelling and it has sunk into oblivion, but it has also been
protected from many defacing. It is now the ideal area to increase the value
of the sacred path....more